Binance freezes accounts linked to Hamas after Israeli request Cryptocurrency scrgruppen

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has frozen accounts linked to Hamas militants based on requests from Israeli law enforcement.

According to a post by Yi He, the exchange’s co-founder, on October 10 on WeChat, the freeze targets Hamas and not the Palestinian people. As narrated by:

“Hamas is a UN-designated terrorist organization. Therefore, any organization, including banks and trading platforms, would need to cooperate in receiving freeze requests. This is not something Binance can decide on its own.”

Yee further clarified that no commercial platforms could refuse such requests: “Palestine has an organized government. Hamas is a local armed group. They are killing civilians; that is the problem. Hamas is not Palestine; the freeze targets Hamas, not Palestine.”

Earlier today, local news outlet Calcalist reported mentioned Israeli officials froze the cryptocurrency accounts of Hamas militants with the help of Binance. Law enforcement authorities claim that terrorists used the accounts to raise war-related funding via social media.

The previous day, Cointelegraph reported that the local Web3 community in Israel had launched a charity campaign to help Israeli civilians affected by the ongoing conflict. The initiative, dubbed “Crypto Aid Israel,” supports donations of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), along with other ERC-20 tokens such as Tether (USDT). The movement has received nearly $50,000 in cryptocurrency donations since its release.

Yi He noted that ordinary users will not be affected by the ban, including Palestinian civilians. She added: “With reference to previous events, when the war broke out before Russia and Ukraine, we did not freeze the accounts of ordinary Russians.”

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